Welcome to Fiore
by totalbloom
Summary: This is a story about a young traveler in Fiore. When she's attacked by a man hired to take the lacrima she wears on her belt she absorbs it's power into her wound making her the object of observation from a group that claims she stole it. Will she discover what powers the crystal held, or will she be killed? (Going to keep as cannon as possible w/ characters acting in character)
1. Chapter 1

Welcome to Fiore...

On a small path I find myself traveling. The path I walk on is surrounded by tall wild grasses that are at least a foot over my head. The trail is hardly worn, in fact if I bothered to stop and think about I might realize it wasn't made by man but was trampled down by the comings and goings of wild animals. Not that the idea matters to me; I have no appointments. No reason to go anywhere in particular, but I've plenty of reason not to stay. The grass around me sways in the calm summer breeze, it's yellow-brown color spoke of the recent lack of rain.

My legs are swore and tired, but at the moment that's not really what I'm paying much attention to. My small violet dress dances with the grass and blows in the wind the grey tights I wear protect my legs from exposure, and a black belt with a large crystal of dark blue lacrima. Lacrima is a common thing found all around the world, a crystal made of pure magic. It is often traded in shops and are used to make many magical items, like toys, communication devices, and weapons. It's a crystal that, in it's raw form holds almost no value. The only thing special about mine is where I got it, and its radiant dark blue color that swirls in with light blue. I hold onto it with my right hand, a nervous habit I've picked up on my travels in this dangerous country.

In a place filled with monsters, burglars, and evil mages; I am practically powerless. Most people would call it suicide to travel in a place like this with no protection. Even I might give someone a shocked look if they were to tell me they were in my situation. I don't have a choice though. I must keep going.

I cast a nervous glance behind me and catch the feint glimpse of some wildly swinging grass. It 's like whosoever is following me has no idea what it means to remain hidden. "I know your there. You mine as well come out." I shrug trying to put on a facade of being nonchalant. "Or you could take this as a warning and leave now. I wont blame you if you do. You've no idea of the power I posses after all," I try to intimidate who ever it is. My voice cracks as I speak giving away the fact that I'm lying. I've always been a terrible liar. My grip tightens painfully around the lacrima causing my hand to turn white as the blood left it.

It seems like my stalker has stopped. The grass stopped moving, but I can still see a spot where it bends to the side unnaturally. I drop my traveling pack and fill my lungs with oxygen, then make a bolt for it. Suddenly the ground is much further away than I remembered. I kick behind me with all my might but it seems to have no effect. My free hand claws at the one holding me.

"No you don't," came a deep bored voice. "Give me that stone you've got there and you can go free." Its the voice of a man, much larger than me in height. I'm not small, but to him I seem like a child.

"No! It's mine! Get off-a-me!" I struggle harder my right hand never leaving the crystal. I can feel my heart beat in my ears, and my hair stands on end as if it could runaway and leave me here.

"My client says you stole it. I'm here to take it back," almost off offhandedly he lands a punch to my ribs. A punch that forces the air out of my lungs. Then tosses me to the ground where I lay struggling to regain oxygen.

The impact of the fall causes my hand to slip on the lacrima making a small cut on my hand. I glance down at it as I feel the hot flow of blood and let out a small gasp. The red from my blood was oozing into the crystal turning it a purple as it became liquid and seeped into my wound.

"What the!?" I yell in surprise. Where the liquid crystal is in my blood a sharp pain like needles trying to poke out of my veins, and with each heart beat it spreads up my arm. I try to force it out of my body, yanking my arm away form me as if to rip it off. "It hurts!" I scream.

The man rolled his eyes, "get over it. I didn't hurt you that bad," then he adds mumbling, "great power my ass. For a second I thought this would be interesting."

As the pain reaches my heart I grasp at it's rapid thumping with my hand. The pain would spread quickly now that it's there. "Ach! Get it out!" I scream.

"What are you having a heart attack?" he raises an eyebrow questioningly then shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me anyway. Where's the lacrima?" He walks over to me and kicks me in the back so I role over. "It's gone? You bitch, did you drop it? This is ridiculous," the man notices my traveling pack. "I'm not crawling in the dirt for some stupid piece of crap. I'll take this, there's bound to be at least something worth my time in here."

With that he leaves me writhing in pain on the ground as needles prickle my entire body. I don't have to deal with it for to long though, because soon the sweat relief of blackness eases me into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

As I come into the waking world I hear the sound of crickets, and various other sounds of the night fill my ears. The needle pricking pain is gone. The only thing left to remind me of the night before are a few bruises. I try to gather my thoughts as to recall everything that had happened.

My eyes fly open suddenly and I sit up holding my aching ribs. "The lacrima, the lacrima it..." I stare at my hand where a seemingly harmless cut stares back at me. Aware now of how vulnerable I am I take a look around, my eyes adjusted to the dark I watch the grass for the unnatural wild swaying of the day before. I take a breath to relax. Nothing that I could see was out of place. Searching for my belongings I think about the man. "That's right, before I blacked out he stole them. Rotten man." I allow myself to fall back into the dirt. "My food was in there." I turn over to my side to get back on my feet. "I better hope a town is nearby." I remember that my jewels were in my pack as well. "I better hope I can get some kind of work too."

The bleakness of the situation fully dawning on me I walk on to who knows where muttering to myself, "stupid, stupid stupid."

It happens that there wasn't a town nearby. It had been two days. Two days of walking. Two days of fear, hunger, and random spurts of needle like pain. Not the hollow pain of being hungry. No, that was something I could deal with. It was repeats of the same needle like pain as before. Saying it hurt would be an understatement. It felt like my entire body was changing every time it happened. Like my body parts were being ripped off and replaced. As time went on it would become less and less painful.

Now I wander through a town bustling with activity. I smile widely. I'm exhausted, starving, dirty and probably smell really bad too but I am alive. That's about all I can ask for at this point of time. "Oh this stuff smells so good," I find myself dulling over a stand filled with fresh baked goods. I don't remember approaching it, but I'm having a difficult time walking away from it.

"Oh yes, it's all fresh backed. I'll give you a special deal; buy two and get another free. Interested?" A rather plump woman smiles at me.

My eyes brighten up as I take in the enticing scent, "Of course I'm interested!" then I blush with embarrassment. "Well, Ma'am I don't have any jewels bu-"

Suddenly I feel the impact of a broom handle against my skull. "Then get out of here!" the woman's smile had turned into a scowl. "If you can't buy anything then go away! Make room for real costumers!" Once again I feel the impact of the broom handle so I cover my head with my hands.

"Stop that! I'm leaving!" I shout as I walk away glaring at her.

"Come back when you get jewels!" she yells before turning to sweetly great a new costumer.

"Trust me I wont!" I retorts which earns me a rock being thrown at my head from the evil wench.

Soon I was catch up in another sweet sweet aroma. This time it's that of a fresh cooked pumpkin pie. My body without me telling it to follows it. Outside of a restaurant called "8 Islands" I stare longingly inside as the pie is served by a scarlet haired women to some men. My entire body leaned up against the glass as I shamelessly imagined myself digging in to the delectable pie. My entire being screams to me to run inside, take a seat, and eat; but I won't allow myself. As I stare I think to myself, 'jewels, I just need jewels. If I had that all my problems would be solved, I just need..."

The hollow pain in my stomach is suddenly replaced by the needle like stabbing. A feeling I will willingly admit I am far to acquainted with. Without a word I grab my self as if my arms are the only things holding everything in place and struggle to a nearby alley way where I clench my teeth to stay quiet. I feel my body hit the pavement before I bother realizing I've collapse. "Paaaaain" I moan loudly.

I don't notice him approaching, and if I did I wouldn't be able to, under my current circumstances, react the way I would like to. "Are you alright?" the ancient voice reaches my ears.

I open my eyes to just see a short old man standing over me. He's bald and wearing a chef's outfit. "I'm fine," I growl through my teeth.

He gives me a worried glance, "are you sure about that?"

The pain begins to disperse allowing me to sit up sweating and breathing hard. "Yes, I'm fine. I uh, just... haven't eatin' in a while. That's all. I'll leave if that's what you want," I decide not to tell him about the lacrima, and as I get up he holds out his hand.

"I wont ask you to leave. My name it Shitou Yajima. Come in and have something to eat," he gives me a warm smile.

I smile back my teeth showing, "thank you sir!" I follow him into a side door of the restaurant I had been gazing into earlier. Finding myself in a kitchen filled with the smells of cooking food. My mouth can't help it but begin to hang open as I think dreamily of having something tasty touch my lips and I think about the flavor of what ever I get exploding in my mouth. I get so caught up in a dream like state that I almost forget what's going on around me.

"Do you mind sitting down?" the man who's name I've already forgotten asks me. By the tone of his voice I can only guess that this isn't the first time he had asked.

I sit down quickly trying to hide my embarrassment, "ya, uh sorry."

"No problem at all, you sit here and I'll fix you something up."

As I wait I watch his odd employees go about their work. He has two cats, a white female in a dress and a blue male doing dishes with a small girl with dark blue hair and pigtails. Then he has this rose haired guy actually breathing fire into an oven. My body tenses as I recognize the rose hair boy as a mage.

"Hello," the blue haired girl greets me with a shy smile.

"Hullo," I reply before the scarlet haired women appears in the kitchen with a blonde waitress walking behind her.

"Break time!" the blonde smiles and stretches her hands up to the ceiling.

"Yes," the scarlet haired women crosses her arms. She seems like the leader of the group. "Ten minute break before we have to get back to work."

"Finally, hey let's get something to eat. I'm starved! What's that smell?" the rose haired mage wrinkles his nose.

The blue cat sprouts wings. A talent I was unaware cats even had, and flies over to me. "She smells bad." His huge eyes and smiling cat face look at me. "You should take a bath."

"Happy that's a little rude," the blue haired girl comments so nobody notices.

"Oh hey I hadn't noticed someone was here," the blonde walks over with a smile. "Hi I'm Lucy," she holds out her hand for me to shake.

I take her hand in mine, "I'm...Isoko" I decided to lie about my name. I don't know these people, and I don't trust people I don't know.

"Hey I'm Natsu!" the rose haired mage jumps up beside the blonde making me jump.

The scarlet haired women relaxes on a chair to my left. "I'm Erza Scarlet, it's nice to meet you Isoko."

I nod to her, "Nice to meet you too Erza."

The blue haired girl stands next to Erza, "my name's Wendy, this is Happy,"

"Aye Sir!"

"And Charle"

"Hm, you do smell rather awful" the cat crosses her arms and turns her head away from me.

"That's not nice Charle." Wendy says to the cat, then turns to me, "are you going to be working here for a while?"

"Um the chef just offered me food..." just then the old man walks in carrying a plate full of sandwiches, all cut neatly into triangles.

"Dig in, there's plenty for everyone," the old man smiles.

"Great! Just what I needed!" Natsu starts chowing down sending bits of food flying. Everyone else takes their share a bit more elegantly.

I take a bite of sandwich and join him in shoving food in my mouth. "You remind me of a shark having a feeding frenzy." I state around a mouth full of food.

"Your one to talk," he says between bites.

Eventually as my apatite dies I slow down, "that's the best meal I've had since I can remember, thank you for the food!" I smile at the old man. Then take a drink of water. My eyes go wide. "Whoa! This is good!" I take another drink.

The man smiles, "It's just regular water."

"Best water I've ever had. May I have more?"

"I don't see why not."

"Alright," Erza stands up, "time to get back to work."

"I'm not done eating yet," Natsu complains, his intake of food hadn't slowed down one bit.

Erza gives him a glare that sends shivers down everyone's spine. "Get back to work." She growls.

"A-aye sir," Natsu promptly gets up and goes back to blowing flames into the oven.

"Thank you for the food Mr. Yajima," Wendy does a small bow and goes back to cleaning the dishes. Lucy and Erza return to the dinner to clean up some tables before opening back up the restaurant.

"Hey, can I ask you something? Why is a mage working in a dinner?" I whisper to the old man.

"All my employees are mages. It's a magic based restaurant. Now why don't you go get cleaned up? There's a bath upstairs and I'll have Lucy bring you up a uniform," when he mentions everyone is a mage my blood runs cold.

"Hey, uh, you mean. I mean. Wait, uh you want me to work? You never mentioned that. Plus I'm not a mage," I feet bad about trying to get out of paying him back for his kindness but magic makes me uneasy.

"I didn't? Sorry about that. Anyway you better go get ready," with that I, resigned to my fate, head upstairs.


End file.
